It's a fancy-pants ruler-shaped form factor among Intel gubbins

The DC S4500 and S4600 use 3D TLC NAND and come in 2.5-inch x 7mm format. They use the 6Gbit/s SATA interface and feature a new Intel-developed controller and firmware.

Model

Capacity

R' Read IOPS

R' Write IOPS

Seq Read

Seq Write

DC S4500

240GB, 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB, 3.84TB

to 72,000

to 33,000

to 500MB/sec

to 490MB/sec

DC S4600

240GB, 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB

to 72,000

to 65,000

to 500MB/sec

to 490MB/sec

The difference is that the S4600 is optimised for more writes.

The endurance is one drive write per day (DWPD) for five years for the S4500 and three DWPD for five years for the S4600.

Intel DC S4500 and S4600 product

E8 is taking advantage of the dual-ported Optane drives, saying that it makes Optane suitable for use in applications needing high availability.

Forthcoming Intel 'ruler' format

The ruler format is said by Intel to enable more solid-state capacity inside thin server chassis, with it enabling up to 1PB of storage in a 1U server rack in the future. Both 3D NAND SSDs and Optane drives will appear, probably before the end of the year, in this ruler form factor. ®